The end of Harry and Meghan’s American dream

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0:50When Prince Harry spoke to the BBC in May of last year, it looked like there was no way home for the Duke of Sussex. I miss the UK. I miss parts of the UK. Of course I do. And I think that it's really quite sad that I won't be able to show my children my homeland. But now it seems the Sussexes have had a change of heart. They are leaving California and returning to England with their two children. This move comes six years after they had an incredibly public breakup with the UK. Harry and Meghan, you'll recall, were welcomed to the US with open arms and multi-million dollar brand partnerships.

1:28So what happened? What's changed? From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. And today on The Global Story, Harry and Meghan's return to Britain and why their so-called American dream may have come to an end.

1:51My name's Sarah Hewson. I'm a journalist and royal commentator. I've been following the royal family for two decades. Sarah, thank you for joining us on The Global Story. The return of the Sussexes to the UK was announced, I believe, late on Wednesday, UK time. How did you first find out? And what was your reaction? Well, it was a pleasure to be with you. And I have to say, my jaw hit the floor. I had no awareness, no inkling whatsoever that this was going to happen. And if you'd asked me, I'd have said, no way. They have built a life for themselves in California. They have burned the bridges back here in Britain.

2:32And it's just not happening, certainly not now. And even more extraordinary is the fact that they were over here in the UK in July. They went to see the King and Queen Camilla at Highgrove, the King's private home. They had that meeting, but this wasn't discussed, we're told, during that meeting. The King was only informed of this on Sunday, and it's all happening very, very fast. We're told they are going to be here within the month. They're going to be here in August. So we've got, what, 11 days left, and their children, Archie and Lilibet, have been enrolled in British schools. Now, schools go back here in the UK after the summer break at the beginning of September, usually that first week of September.

3:17So you can imagine that they will want to be here and getting settled before that for the children. They have got a new home here in the UK. I was going to ask, where do they intend to live? Because they gave up their royal credentials, and so they're presumably not living in a royal residence anymore. They no longer have a royal residence. They gave up their royal status. They gave up their roles as working royals, and they also gave up their home, Frogmore Cottage, on the Windsor estate. So they don't have a base here. And that's been a problem for some time whenever they've wanted to come back.

3:49They have, we understand, secured a new property. It's not a royal residence. It is a private property. It doesn't appear that they've bought a new home at this stage. They're likely to be renting a home. And as for where, the most likely area, and we don't know the details of this, and we know they're very private and very security conscious. But it's highly likely that it's going to be in the Cotswolds. They did lease a property there before their marriage. But the Cotswolds also gives them the advantage of being near Highgrove, King Charles' home. So if they want to start repairing those relations and spending more time with the king, well, then that would be ideal.

4:30Sarah, I think it's worth reminding listeners why Harry and Meghan left the UK for the US in 2020. I think some listeners will recall there was certainly a perception among some Americans that Meghan was not treated fairly by the royal family or in some cases by the UK press. That is certainly a sentiment that existed here in the United States among some. Yes. And of course, in this story, there are two very different versions of it. And people are either in Camp Harry and Meghan or they're on the other side of the royal family. And certainly what we had when they left makes it this huge story when they decided to leave the royal family, leave Britain behind and build a new life in America, was Harry and Meghan discussing how difficult their lives had become within the royal family.

5:21And many will remember Meghan talking about how impossible it was for her within palace walls, that it was taking a huge toll on her mental health, that she had felt trapped within the palace, that she had received some extremely negative media coverage, trolling threats to them. and that ultimately they had felt, and Harry, with everything that had happened with his mother, had felt that the only option was for them to leave the country, to get away and to build a life for themselves. Now, of course, Buckingham Palace had that famous phrase, didn't they, after the Oprah Winfrey interview and the allegations made there, recollections may vary.

6:08And we do have two very different versions of this. You mentioned the interview with Oprah. That was in 2021. And I want to talk about the context in which they first arrived to the United States. You know, when they came in 2020, in the following few years, there were these several blockbuster tell-all pieces of content. their Netflix documentary in 2022, Harry's memoir Spare the following year, 2023. Do you gauge that the Sussexes were happy with what all that did for their profile and their reputation in the United States around that time? Well, I mean, look, the Harry and Meghan documentary was a massive hit for Netflix.

6:54Spare, Harry's autobiography, was an absolutely monumental hits in terms of book sales. But have they achieved everything they set out to do? Has life on the other side of the pond given them everything that they wanted? And I don't necessarily think that is the case, despite those big hits. And the problem for them has been that the greater the distance they have put between themselves and the royal family, the less interest there is in them from the public. There's also the brand Sussex in America and how they're making a living. Has it become tough for them to continue to make a living? Certainly it has.

7:41You know, Megan has launched her lifestyle brand as ever, but we don't know how lucrative that is for them. We don't know the figures. We do get told that the products have been selling out, but, you know, How much money is she able to generate? And Harry has taken a step back, really, from commercial endeavors to focus on what he really wants to do, which is the philanthropy. What all has this sharing that the Sussexes have done of their lives over the years here in California, what has that done to the relationship with the royal family? The sharing of dirty laundry, effectively, and those private family secrets has been catastrophic for their relationship with the royal family.

8:22Your arguments with your brother became physical. It was a buildup of frustration, I think, on his part. You know, Harry talked about the fight that he had with his brother, Prince William. He was shouting at me. I was shouting back at him. And that was in a 2023 interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS's 60 Minutes. And he snapped and he pushed me to the floor. He knocked you over? He knocked me over. I landed on the dog bowl. You cut your back? Yeah, I cut my back. I didn't know about it at the time. But yeah, he apologized afterwards. It was a pretty nasty experience. We had accusations against the Princess of Wales, that she was cold, that Queen Camilla was the wicked stepmother.

9:05We, of course, had in the Oprah Winfrey documentary the claims that there was racism within the royal family. There are several conversations about it. There's a conversation with you... With Harry. ...about how dark your baby is going to be? Potentially, and what that would mean or look like. That Meghan's pleas for help as she was struggling with her mental health were ignored. they were hugely damaging revelations and accusations. And that has put an ocean between them and the family. And I think while we are seeing that the seeds of regrowth in that, in terms of the relationship between Harry and his father, with other members of the family, notably with Prince William, I think we're a long way off that.

9:58Between the two brothers, have they spoken over the years? Well, we don't know, of course. And that is one of the biggest issues in this, the fact that a lot of the private family conversations and the dealings between the two sides ended up in the public domain. And so that lack of trust was a real barrier towards any kind of rapprochement, any kind of conversations taking place. We don't know, but we don't believe there have been conversations between them, as far as we're aware, for some years now. Sarah, I want to understand why Harry and Meghan have decided this is the right moment for their family to return to the UK.

10:38But before we do that, I want to understand first what their time in the United States has been like. When they moved to the United States, there was a Netflix deal that they got in September of 2020. It was believed to be worth around$100 million. Then there was a Spotify deal that was estimated to be worth$25 million. Back then in 2020, there was, I would say, goodwill toward Harry and Meghan from the American public broadly. Why was that the case? I think you're absolutely right there. They were hot property. There were people fighting over them to get this deal. Everybody wanted that Netflix documentary series.

11:21The Spotify deal was a really big deal for both Spotify and for Harry and Meghan, but it went wrong pretty quickly. And we then had the humiliation of a Spotify executive calling them a pair of grifters. The Netflix deal hasn't produced those big hits apart from that Harry and Meghan documentary series. And the deal wasn't renewed. They do still have connections with Netflix now. They have a kind of first rights deal with them. But in terms of those big money deals, they have been a kind of one hit wonder. And I think we know that they have very high security costs. We know that, you know, they have a big mansion in Montecito.

12:08Their living costs are very high and they need to make a living. And it's been far harder than they perhaps might have expected right at the outset when everybody was clamoring for them to tell their story. Once that story's been told, what do they offer? I'm curious what we know about what Harry and Meghan's lives were like in Montecito. I think Harry and Meghan, from what we've seen, and then actually, you know, in the last year we've been seeing rather a lot more because Meghan started up her Instagram account and gave us little glimpses into family life. And from what they have shown us, well, an idyllic life, you know, a beautiful home in Montecito, two beautiful children.

12:52You know, we've seen Harry taking the children down to surf school on the beach, out walking the dogs. They do the school run, you know, to all intents and purposes. It looks fantastic, particularly when you're sitting in rainy blighty. What a life to be living in California. But I think behind closed doors for Harry, the sense that you get is that this was a lonely existence, that he didn't have his close friends around him. He didn't have any family nearby. Megan has a mother, Doria. But other than that, they were fairly isolated. I think also those big hopes and that huge optimism they had that they were going to make this big, bold, fresh start away from the royal family have proved to be perhaps a little naive, that it's been far harder to build a life and separate yourself from the royal family successfully.

13:57In May of 2025, our BBC colleague Neda Taufik spoke to Harry in California. Hello, Prince Harry. And he told her in his words. I can't see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK at this point. A lot of the concerns, it seems, revolved around security arrangements. Look at the risks. Look at the threat. Look at the impact that if anything was to happen to me, my wife or my father's grandchildren, if anything was to happen to them, look where the responsibility lies. Can you break that down and explain what the concerns have been? Yeah, and this is absolutely fascinating.

14:36Harry has been fighting for many years now to have his security status restored. And that is round the clock Metropolitan Police provided security, taxpayer funded security. He didn't get that. Once he'd left the United Kingdom and was no longer a working royal, his security status was downgraded. And that meant whenever he wanted to return to the United Kingdom, he had to apply to a committee called RAVEC, which effectively looks after royal and VIP security here in the United Kingdom and he had to apply to them with three weeks notice and then that would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. He had long argued this wasn't good enough and although he had his private security in the United States that he felt that the intelligence that the Metropolitan Police had here was absolutely vital to protecting his family and it wouldn't be safe to bring them back.

15:30Now as far as we're aware that status hasn't changed. They do not have taxpayer-funded security. They offered to pay for metropolitan police security when they visited the United Kingdom. And they were told, no, we are not cops for hire, and that that would set a very dangerous precedent. And so to Harry, that was absolutely a red line. Without that security, it wasn't safe to come back. Can I just understand what private security would look like in the UK compared to, say the security a member of the royal family would receive. Is there a major distinction in what that level of security looks like?

16:09Yeah, and security is a really difficult question to answer, actually, because it's one they will not answer and they will not give details about for obvious reasons because they don't want to compromise that security. But a member of the royal family would have private police protection officers, PPOs, attached to them and they would go with them wherever they are. 24-7. 24-7. Those PPOs are with them, particularly the senior members of the royal family. There's a lot of intelligence sharing between the Home Office and, of course, the Metropolitan Police. And, you know, it is seen as the highest grade of security that you can have.

16:51It's the same security that is offered to visiting dignitaries, for example, you know, if you have Heads of state, yes. Heads of state. It is also offered to all former prime ministers of the United Kingdom. And that's been at the core of Harry's argument in this. Taylor Swift, in fact, had this level of security when she was in the United Kingdom. How come Taylor Swift gets it? But I, as the son of the king, am not entitled to it. We know that there have been threats against them. There have been threats from the far right towards Meghan. There have been death threats made towards them. And former police officers have talked about that.

17:33But it's been a real debate. Are they entitled to taxpayer-funded security? They're now moving back to the United Kingdom. But the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has said today that their security is a private matter. I mean, I read that as being it's nothing to do with the government. and it's up to them. They're private citizens and they can make their own arrangements.

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18:22In that same interview that Harry gave to my colleague Neda Taufik, he told her, I don't know how much longer my father has. As I said, life is precious. I don't know how much longer my father has. You know, he won't speak to me because of this security stuff. But it would be nice to reconcile. I mean, that was one of the standout moments from that interview, wasn't it? A lot of people have been wondering today, does this mean that the King's health is not as we perhaps might hope, that it is more serious than we might have thought? You know, we desperately hope not. But could that be a factor?

19:10Harry had said last year that the next 12 months his focus was on his father. There's also the fact that I think Harry has clearly become rather homesick. Despite their unhappiness when they left the United Kingdom, he's made it clear over the last year or so that he really does miss his country, that he did want to spend more time here in Britain, and that he desperately wanted his children, Archie and Lilibet, who are a prince and princess, to know about their heritage, to know where they come from, to know their family, to be a part of that royal family and to spend time with his father. Hmm.

19:48And how has the British public responded? I think there are very, very diverse opinions on this. There are those that said, you know, they've made their bed, they can lie in it. They went off to California, stay there. You know, They've done so much damage to the royal family with the brickbats that have been thrown and the grenades that have been lobbed across the Atlantic that it's just beyond repair. But there are others, and I think when you see Harry when he came back here last month, there are others who say, actually, you know, they are a real asset. Harry, when you see him on his charity work, he comes to life.

20:29He is absolutely brilliant at that. and there is still a huge amount of affection for him. I think Meghan will be concerned about the reception that she will get here. And I think the way in which the British public responds to them may well be led by the way in which the royal family respond to them and how we see them. Are they visibly welcomed back into the fold? Yeah, are they at Christmas dinners with everybody else or are they not? Well, this is the first thing that came to my mind. And, you know, are we going to be seeing them at Balmoral for Christmas and Sandringham for the summer holidays?

21:07Are they going to be attending church at Easter in Windsor with the royal family, for example? Are they going to be making public appearances with the royal family? Now, they're not going to be working royals. That status that they agreed in that Sandringham summit in 2020. They gave it up. They gave it up. Can you ever become a royal again? Well, Harry's always a royal. He's always a member of the royal family, but he's a non-working royal. And that's the distinction that the late queen made, that, you know, they will always be much loved members of her family, is how she described it. But they had decided to step back from their public roles.

21:45Can you change your mind on that and decide you want to be a working royal again? It's like coming out of retirement, maybe. Well, you can try, but I guess you have to get the approval of those at the top. And at the moment, the steer from Buckingham Palace is nothing is changing on that front. And nor do we get the impression that Harry and Meghan want that to change at the moment, that they want to retain their freedom to make a living for themselves privately. But by being closer to the family, they will be able to attend those private events if they receive the invitation. What we heard heard is that part of the reason they left and moved to California was because of the ways in which they felt that they were mistreated by some in the UK press.

22:30They have accused the press of racism, of bullying. Are there reasons for them to believe that those concerns will have dissipated? I mean, has the tone in the media changed at all towards Harry and Meghan? I think the tone in the media generally has been changing over recent years, and particularly since the Leveson inquiry into phone hacking. And this was the revelation that celebrities, members of the royal family, people who had found themselves in the public eye had had their phones hacked by journalists, by tabloid newspapers in order to get stories. And Prince Harry has been fighting for years now in the courts against the tabloid press.

23:15He's had some victories against some of the media here, some of the tabloid press in the UK, but he's also lost a significant case, his most recent one, against the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday newspaper. All of these have played out in the course and Harry has desperately been trying to change the media landscape and the way in which the tabloid press in particular operates with, as I said, some success and some less so. But I don't know how much they feel that has changed now, whether they will get a different kind of reception from the media. I think they are now private citizens.

24:01That means they're no longer public property, but they also lack the protection that they had within the royal family. Having said that, though, as those words came out of my mouth, they have long argued that they didn't get protection within the royal family. One of their biggest criticisms was that they felt that they were being made to look bad to make others look good. And they weren't receiving the same level of support as others, something that has always been denied by those within palace circles. But I think it will be challenging. And I think for both of them, and particularly Meghan, one of the real concerns will be what kind of reception will we get?

24:44The paparazzi, of course, has long been one of Harry's greatest enemies. and with reason because of what happened to his mother, Princess Diana, in Paris in 1997. It is something that has totally and utterly shaped his life. And when Meghan and he were being hounded by the paparazzi, I think for Harry he felt that this was history repeating itself. and he felt he had no choice but to leave Britain in order to protect his wife. Of course, it didn't end when they left Britain because we also had that very famous scene in New York when Meghan was there collecting an award and they were then chased by the paparazzi in New York as well.

25:41And so I think Harry and Meghan, no matter where they go, are of huge public interest. And that does come with a price tag. I mean, the story, any story about a royal family, I think seems very distant to most of us and our American lives here. But in some ways, this is also the story of a family who was split up, it seems, was estranged for a bit of time. And I think there's something kind of optimistic also in what you're describing. This is one of the most public family rifts we have seen, and it appears that it could be in the process of healing, you're saying. Well, this is a very sad story, ultimately, isn't it?

26:23This is about a family. A father and his two sons, two sons who have been through unimaginable tragedy, losing their mother so young. falling out in the most public of ways. And a grandfather not being able to have that contact with two of his grandchildren has caused great sadness.

26:54On that note, I want to say thank you, Sarah, for just bringing your reporting and storytelling to us. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.